


There's A Place For Us

by cruisedirector



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Community: JetC, F/M, New Earth, Romance, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1996-09-30
Updated: 1996-09-30
Packaged: 2017-10-06 21:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruisedirector/pseuds/cruisedirector
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A very corny post-Angry Warrior love story. Contains kissing and off-key singing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's A Place For Us

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a sappy song challenge. The lyric is from 'West Side Story.' Janeway and Chakotay never got as much resolution as Maria and Tony did, and Paramount could have given them a happier ending.

The next morning she took a long walk by herself, so that she could think.

She needed to figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life. Now that there was no point in pretending her destiny lay anywhere other than here--with him. It felt strange to wake up with no sense of urgency, no rush to check the insect traps or devise new methods of calculating genetic variance in virus proliferation; she could have stayed in bed all morning if she wanted to. Chakotay was cooking something that smelled good, though, so she rose, left her hair tangled about her shoulders and went out to greet him.

They'd said little after he poured his heart out to her the night before. He understood that she wasn't ready to make any declarations in kind, and released her hand after a few minutes, rising to proclaim that he was pretty tired himself from all the work, maybe they should get some sleep. If he'd wanted to kiss her goodnight, she would have kissed him back, though her stomach and pelvic muscles tightened painfully for the instant he stood by her before he smiled and turned to the alcove which held his bed. She lay down in the warm, dark cocoon of the room listening to his snoring and the soft noises of night insects, expecting to be awake for quite some time mulling over what he'd said and what her response should be...over the next few days and forever after that. So she was surprised to wake up with the sun already well over the horizon, to find that she had fallen sound asleep almost immediately.

There were decisions to be made before she could come to any conclusions about how their relationship would change. Without her research, it was obvious that she should take over some of the chores he'd been doing for them both--cooking, housework, everything but her personal laundry, which he probably would have done gladly but she had never considered letting him. She was going to want new projects to keep from being bored, but there were many things she could envision: new ways of composting and recycling to save energy and resources, natural pesticides to protect their crops from the myriad insects on the planet. Perhaps even building a dam to generate power from the river, he could help her with the technical aspects of that. She wouldn't lack for interesting things to do. Nor for someone to work with. It was too soon to think about sharing everything, but he would welcome the opportunity to work with her again, the way they had on the ship. Now, as equals.

Walking briskly in the warm morning air, she knew there were also practical matters to be considered before she could fully explore her response to Chakotay's declaration. They didn't really know anything about one another's romantic lives: she knew a couple of names from his past, he knew one from hers, but they'd never discussed the relationships, certainly not their sexual experiences, desires, fantasies. It was important they understand one another's drives, so that they wouldn't trigger emotional conflicts based on nothing more than uneven libidinal cravings. It was also critical they make certain that children were never a possibility. She wasn't even sure how important sex was to him, anyway: he'd been sharing quarters with her for weeks now, and only on a couple of occasions had he shown her anything like lust. He'd been badly scarred by Seska; it was possible that he would feel threatened by a sudden show of desire on her own part.

Well, so would she. They both needed time--but time was the one resource they had in abundance. Well, that, and water and air...and lumber, she could hear Chakotay working on something in the distance, the high whine of a phaser-driven saw. Must be a big project if he was using artificial energy sources... She wondered what. Hard to believe he'd built the bathtub entirely without attracting her attention, using mostly hand tools, counting on her distraction with her own research to keep his secret. She'd had no idea he was so handy, nor so artistic--he was adept at sculpture and painting, skilled in both abstract and representative modeling. His talents were really far more valuable in their situation than her own. At least she knew something about gardening, and working with cloth--maybe she could help him with whatever he was working on now, and learn from him. She heard a new sound over the sound of the machinery, and followed the noise until she could see him.

He was singing. Loudly, a bit off-key, rather flamboyantly as if he were performing in an operetta. She didn't know the tune and couldn't quite catch the words, but it was clearly a love song. His back blocked much of her view, but she could see him warbling to his equipment as he severed wood, lifting one of the logs before his face so he could direct a particularly passionate line to it.

At first it was hard not to giggle, watching his profile as he crooned adoringly to the objects around him. It was also hard not to stare. She hadn't noticed how his hair had been growing out during their exile, and how his skin had darkened under the alien sun. He was relaxed now, emotions playing over his face as he lost himself in the song. A grimace of suffering, an easy grin--a sharp tingle shot through her at the sudden, renewed realization of just how attractive she found him, especially with his hair falling unevenly across his forehead, shirt streaked with sweat, muscles rippling beneath his clothing as he lifted the equipment.

The man was magnetic. It was something she rarely let herself notice, certainly not now when she was alone with him. On the ship, at occasional moments when she'd seen him off-duty, trouncing Paris at pool, flirting halfheartedly with Torres or Henley, she'd been aware of it, but she'd always watched at a distance. He'd known better than to turn that charm on his captain. His intensity occasionally took her breath away: the way he'd grabbed her wrist when she told him of her plan to go down with the ship in pursuit of Dreadnought, the sound of her title from his lips as he exhorted her--no, begged her--to get off the bridge when the duplicate Voyager had almost destroyed them with its energy bursts--but she could dismiss those as the bond between captain and first officer, or between friends.

No more. He'd made that clear the day before, that what she'd tried to dismiss as just sexual tension stemmed from something much deeper. Even if he hid behind a story, even if he'd carefully chosen terms which would allow her to pretend that his was a statement of loyalty rather than love. Perhaps he thought she wasn't attracted to him, or wouldn't be if he were anything other than the last man in the world. He didn't seem to want casual erotic favors from her any more than she wanted them from him. It was all or nothing: so here he was, pouring out his passion to inanimate objects, waiting to see what she would decide.

He glanced up, and saw her looking.

* * * *

She stepped back quickly, as though he'd caught her watching him do something far more personal than singing--which, in a way, she had. He knew he was blushing, wondering whether she'd heard the words. Of course she was the real subject of his song, but seeing her there listening made it frighteningly real, in a way that it had not felt even the night before, when he'd sat ready for a rejection which never came. He didn't want to pressure her, had no intention of staking any kind of claim to her; if she'd told him flatly that a physical relationship might destroy their ability to be everything else to one another, friends and companions forever, he would have accepted that. He had her all to himself for the rest of his life. The intimacy he craved most from her was not of the flesh.

Still, she looked beautiful with the sunlight gleaming on her hair, as she'd looked beautiful the night before with the soft artificial light of the shelter shining on it; her cheeks were flushed now from his gaze, but she was smiling, eyes alight with warmth and--was that affection? She took a step towards him, looking a little bit ashamed. Quickly he turned off the saw, put it on the ground beside the stack of wood.

"I didn't mean to interrupt."

"Not at all. I was going to take a break anyway. Do you want some lunch, Kathryn..." His voice trailed off as she took another step, until she was close enough that she had to turn her head up to look into his eyes, and he had to lower his chin. Close enough to hug. Close enough to kiss. Was that the idea...that had to be the idea. He looked at her again and realized what he was seeing.

Not just affection. Arousal. He'd been afraid to call it that, the few times he'd seen it on her face before--thinking it might be superficial. He was aware that certain women were attracted to him in a purely physical sense, because he'd inherited big shoulders and dark hair, and his uneven nose apparently charmed some people. He would honestly rather have had her as a chaste soulmate than an indifferent lover, and until the night before he had not dared hope for more, except in very private fantasy. Sometimes he feared being overwhelmed if she ever returned his feelings. The emotional commitment seemed to be what scared her most, too--especially now, when they couldn't get away from each other. It was probably easier for her to deal with the base instinctive level of attraction, which could be classified and analyzed. Defined parameters.

She was standing mere centimeters in front of him, looking a little unsure of herself but determined to follow through--to demonstrate what she was feeling, to show him that she'd understood what he was trying to express in the song, she accepted it and wanted it. Nervous, but smiling, feeding off the warmth in his eyes the way he was feeding off her shining blue gaze on him. He could smell her shampoo and soap in her sweat, feel the stickiness of her skin from the heat when his fingers touched her arm, a shock passing between them like static electricity. She jumped, looking directly up at him, and the motion put her face so close to his own that their chins almost collided. They both laughed a little at the awkwardness--like any first kiss, their noses bumping before he tilted his head a fraction and felt her eyelashes brush his cheek. Such a short space, yet such great distance between his mouth and hers, and once crossed there was no going back, ever. A bridge which burned the first time it was traveled so that they could never pass the same way again.

When her lips met his, barely making contact those first seconds, he wanted to melt against her, dissolve in the feeling, he felt it burning all the way through his body, as if she'd kissed his chest and the backs of his knees and his pelvis all at once while whispering his name adoringly in both his ears. "Oh," she breathed, while he murmured a startled "Mmm." They pulled apart to glance at one another before trying it again. This time it was a little less clumsy, her head angled to avoid crashing. He traced his nose down her cheek and moved his mouth in from the side, fitting the rise of his lower lip beneath hers while his upper lip probed, pushing hers apart. Their tongues met for a tantalizing instant. His pulled back, returned less cautiously, his head dipping more sharply, while her arm locked around his neck, trapping him there.

"Kathryn," he said quietly, with some surprise because she was moaning, gripping his shoulders just to stay standing. He slipped his arms the rest of the way around her so that she could rest against him. She smelled so good, he was trying not to press his nose in her hair too obviously. So strong, seductive in the most pure sense of the word--no games, no flirting, just the irresistible lure of one body for another, like gravity. One of the greatest of mysteries. What sparked it? Not simply their physical appeal for each other, not just the emotional bond they had formed as colleagues and friends--they were communicating something far more profound.

Abruptly he found himself laughing. Practically swooning over one kiss--they were both experienced adults, it was really silly, and terrifically sexy. She had pressed up against him, hip to belly, thigh to groin, evidently accepting of his obvious excitement. He let dreams roll through his mind as he kissed her again--sliding his lips down her throat, over her neck. It was too soon to think seriously of his fingers opening her top, of taking her nipples in his mouth, pulling the rest of her clothes down, nibbling his way across her belly and thighs before pressing his face between her legs, letting his tongue find the hot bubble of moisture while he kissed and kissed her, his chin getting slick as he held her thighs apart until she opened up and kissed him back with all of her.

She was delicious now, wrapped in his arms and meeting him fully with her mouth, sharing his laughter without having to know the source, the way she would share his home and his life from now on. It was all he could have dreamed of, a joy so deep that physical expression seemed secondary to the feeling which triggered it. "Hungry?" he whispered when they had stopped kissing and were merely rubbing noses to cheekbones, holding one another gently to contain the desire between them without igniting it, and she nodded. Ravenous, but unwilling to give up the chance to savor the great delicacy over many days and nights. She took his hand, fingers linked together as they had been the night before, and let him lead her back home for the rest of their lives.


End file.
